Twitter Friendship With E-Commerce Exec Helps Fix Shipping Snafu

Peter of Bible Money Matters blog didn’t want to turn the other cheek when Tiger Direct told him his order would take two weeks longer to ship because he paid via eBillme. So Peter enlisted an eBillme exec he met via Twitter to pressure Tiger Direct into getting his order out on time and finding the glitch that caused the hold-up.

Peter writes:

The thing that I learned from this whole ordeal is that while some companies don’t always have their act together (Tiger Direct), others are doing a good job of using social media like twitter and facebook in order to put a good face on their presence. Because eBillme, and specifically VP of MarketingSamer Forzley, were on Twitter and responsive to their customers, I was able to turn a bad experience with their product, into an exceptional one. He was able to correct my misconceptions, go above and beyond when it came to customer service, and not only correct my thinking – but fix my problem in the process!

Peter’s savvy use of social networking proves that if you don’t have the power to fix a particular problem, it’s best to enlist the help of someone who does.

If you’ve managed to settle a problem with a company via social media, please share your tale in the comments.

Comments

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I had never heard of ebillme.com until I read this post. I checked out the website, and I like the idea of it. However, I wonder if delaying shipment of an item when it is used is standard or if Tiger Direct just screwed up.

I was the one who wrote the post. I hadn’t used eBIllme before, but as a personal finance blogger i was intrigued by how it’s billed as a secure way to protect your identity while shopping online, in addition to be a great way to shop paying cash – not credit. Obviously if it always took 2 weeks to verify funds/etc while using ebillme -they would be out of business in no time. However, I’m told that my issue (two week waiting period for shipping) was a snafu on the part of Tiger’s system – a bug. Apprently it’s been fixed – so it shouldn’t happen to anyone else now. I’d be interested to hear anyone else’s experience too.

I have had success addressing customer service on twitter as well. Not on my behalf, but on the behalf of 2 readers of my blog. The first had issues signing up for a promo that Restaurant.com had, and they didn’t respond via email so I talked to them on twitter and in 10 minutes had an email asking for details. Despite the promo being over they honored it for my reader.

I also contacted DirecTv on behalf of a friend and reader, and that earned him back $480 in charges that he shouldn’t have been charged.

Currently I’m trying to deal with Comcast via twitter to reduce our bill, I’ll be sure to share if I’m successful.

I did get Bank of America’s twitter account to fix a snafu with a 1099 form that I should have received for tax time earlier this year. I ended up having to use a special phone number and CSR to get it done, but it eventually was fixed.

Too bad I had already fired them as my bank a few months befor this all went down.

From the original blog it seemed like there was as $25 promo on using ebillme on Tigerdirect but Tiger was ignoring it so the ebillme corporate guy was basically getting shafted by Tigerdirect if they didn’t sort out this issue.